This insidious time-gobbler is from the same lovable peoplewho bring you Facebook.

It's a game which allows you to set up your own cafe, complete with a basicset of equipment and furniture and funds to cook a few dishes and then youstart and at first it seems harmless enough but soon you're plotting how to getthose long-cooking dishes finished and served so you can serve more customersand get far enough ahead of the cooking so you can take a minute to breathe and then it'sback at it again, cooking more and more bacon cheeseburgers and fruit saladsso you can afford to expand and draw more business and then you expand again andpretty soon you're planning your entire life around this dumb game, timingyour leisure hours around when your food is finished and can be served.

Friends who introduce you to this terrible time-waster are notyour friends at all.

I mean you, Carmen!!

And now, back to your regularly-scheduled program.

Nutella.

I thought I was raised in a cultured, well-rounded atmosphere,traveling now and then, exposed to much of what life has to offer.

But never, never, did anyone tell me about this stuff.This wondrous stuff.Nutella.

It's quite a mystery to me because, as you know, I hate and loathenuts in any form or shape.This marvelous goop is hazelnut-flavored.Hazelnut.So why do I like it?Because it looks so much like chocolate?Probably.

I researched this product thoroughly (thank you, google) andfound surprisingly little information about it, other than the factthat Nutella was developed during World War II to compensate forthe scarcity of chocolate in those lean years. Can it be that somethingso good came out of something so bad?Life is strange.

There are many recipes out there that include Nutella, so many that I had tofind out what the fuss was all about.

Now I know, and here's a delicious recipe for you, too. It's a softly crispshortbread that goes together so easily, you'll wonder why people wouldever buy shortbread cookies.These are far superior.

Place dough on large piece of waxed paper. Cover with another sheet and roll out dough to 1/2 inch thickness and using round biscuit cutter, cut out cookies and place on cookie sheets lined with silpat or parchment paper.

Sprinkle cookies with turbinado sugar and bake for 10-12 minutes*

Let them cool for 5 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

To make sandwich-type cookies**, frost one cookie with Nutella and cover with another cookie. Rinse, lather, repeat.

*When I tried this recipe, I found to my dismay that the baking time was woefully inaccurate--or I should say, probably, that for the thickness I rolled my cookies, baking time was way off (22-25 minutes!) My first tray was too dark, although still tasty.I would suggest that you watch them closely while baking and determine length of bake time for yourself.

**These would also be pretty much delicious if you left them as singles frosted with Nutella, too.

1 comment:

my time-gobbler was Mafia Wars but thank goodness the last time they did updates to improve it the game would not work for may any more. it took a few days to get over the withdraws but now I am as good as now and finding that I am getting things done; however, I find that the blogging is not increasing at all.